This invention relates to dental therapeutic compositions and, more particularly, to hemostatic dental astringents embodied in thermally reversible gels for treating gingival tissue.
In dental therapeutics, it is often necessary to retract and displace gingival tissue in order to prepare patients for taking impressions, setting crowns or effecting restorations.
Heretofore, gingival retraction was undertaken by mechanical means, electrosurgery or cutting away tissue as well as by application to the gingival crevice of a gingival retraction solution or a gingival retraction cord having a retraction solution absorbed onto its surface.
While the hemostatic/astringent solutions used in dental therapeutics are effective in retracting gingival tissue and useful in the control of local hemorrhage, nevertheless, these solutions have a drawback in that their flow characteristics are such that they stay on the tissue and are difficult to remove or that they run too rapidly and are carried away by saliva or moisture. Also, astringent soaked gingival retraction cord, when packed into the gingival sulcus, tends to slide outwardly from its packing position.
Accordingly, the principal object of this invention is to provide a thermally reversible gel system for applying hemostatic/astringent compositions to gingival tissue which permits these compositions to stay in place until the therapeutic purpose has been effected and thereafter permits the compositions to be readily and easily removed from the tissue.